Elektra: The mesmerising story of Troy from the three women its heart

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This could have been stronger had it been a more in depth story focusing solely on Clytemnestra or Cassandra but the three POV’s made the story weaker and more surface level. This book is profoundly moving, full of beautiful touches which made the story feel fresh without losing any of the magic of its classical setting.

I know Saint's just following the original text, but my GOD does Elektra get exhausting after a while. Previous The Neanderthals Rediscovered : How A Scientific Revolution Is Rewriting Their Story by Dimitra Papagianni, Michael A. I loved Ariadne but this is even better: a passionate, heartbreaking retelling of some of the most famous women in Greek mythology.

A major part of the narrative is shared between Elektra, Cassandra and Clytemnestra- each of whom gives us a brief picture of the significant events that impact their lives before, during and after the fall of Troy. Add to that the fact that any book with this title should be done with the war sooner and focus more on the psychology of the women and the lead-up to what Clytemnestra does, how it all ties back into the family curse this book is supposedly about.

We read her terrible curse from Apollo as she refuses him to rape her (literally whenever Apollo appears on the scene in any myth you know someone will be sexually assaulted). Elektra' is a beautiful, haunting, twisted, and fascinating Greek retelling, inextricably bound to tragedy, mystery, intrigue, and retribution. I was also impressed that Saint was able to include such a long span of time in just one book, and then make it flow naturally. Her second novel, ELEKTRA, comes out in 2022 and is another retelling of Greek mythology told in the voices of the women at the heart of the ancient legends.

I could understand her anger at her mother, but the way she was ready to sacrifice her brother to those horrible creatures, leave her best friend/husband who's been NOTHING but supportive and kind and patient with her, not sympathize with the other thousands of people who also had someone dear to them killed because of the war and NOT TO MENTION HER SISTER IPHIGENIA WHO WAS MURDERED all for a man who BARELY gave her any attention in the first place, the only meaningful interaction with the 2 of them is him giving her an ugly-ass dagger and . Elektra does not come across as very likable but I think hers was probably the most complicated character to develop, a task that the author does expertly. I loved (while I hated) every second of walking through their grief and seeing all the different ways one deals with it.

I did however have a fair amount of difficulty, in the beginning, determining which character was speaking Cassandra or Electra. The house of Atreus is cursed- through generations of murder, usurping’s of the throne of Mycenae, and cannabalism. interest was also mainly in the second half of the book, and completely absorbed me at the end with a more than satisfying ending as the characters wrestle with their moral dilemma and thirst for revenge because that was what tradition dictated. But what struck me at times was how little regard she had for women experiencing cruelty at the hands of the gods and men.The sister of Helen, wife of Agamemnon – her hopes of averting the curse are dashed when her sister is taken to Troy by the feckless Paris.

While I enjoyed Jennifer Saint’s Ariadne, which I thought was an impressive debut, I found Elektra to be a more powerful and absorbing novel. Whenever I'm in a reading slump and I need something to shake me out of my funk, Greek mythology is what I reach for. Cassandra could have been interesting, but the author leaned into the helpless victim a little too much for my taste. They picked over her reputation like vultures, scavenging for every scrap of flesh they could devour. I loved reading through Cassandra’s chapters as I do have a slight bias towards her (hi, hello, I’m an Apollo lover) but I think some of my favourite parts to read were Clytemnestra’s interactions with her sister Helen, yes that Helen.Saint creates a sense of complete and utter dread that builds and builds until the truth is revealed. If like me you read those war tidbits and thought, there’s the real story… read Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles. Despite these minor issues, being a lover of Greek mythology I truly enjoyed this novel and can confidently recommend it. criticism I do have however, is that I missed the Greek tragedy and there was plenty of incidents, events, deaths, and curses to create the prefect atmosphere and build new drama, but the author did not quite get it right with the atmosphere, drama and sense of theatre we get from the writing. reads like a student trying to reach the word-count on an essay: 300 pages of exposition and filler.